The present invention relates to production of integrated circuits and the like and more particularly relates to integrated circuit lead connection and packaging.
It is known in the electronic component packaging art to set an integrated circuit die between lead frames and make interconnections between bonding pads on the integrated circuit die and corresponding lead-in conductors of such lead frames, one well-known version of this technique being called "dual-in-line packaging [DIP]". The lead-in conductor arrays of high density packing in an axial series fan out to a corresponding low density array of lead-out conductors also in an axial series and coplanar with respect to the lead-in conductor arrays or bent with respect thereto.
The state of the art is characterized by the need for manual work in making the above interconnections between integrated circuit dice and their respective lead-in conductors, problems of registration and orientation tolerance maintenance balancing reliability and yield economics, and useless expenditure of lead connection and packaging effort and cost to condition an integrated circuit for testing which might be rejected for faults intrinsic to the integrated circuit itself.
It is an important object of the present invention to provide improvements in integrated circuit production avoiding one or more of the above cited disadvantages.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce the amount of manual handling implicit in such production consistent with the preceding object.
It is a further object of the invention to improve the reliability of lead connection and packaging consistent with one or both of the preceding objects.
It is a further object of the invention to provide automatic alignment aids consistent with one or more of the preceding objects.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce scatter from die to die in registration and orientation tolerances consistent with one or more of the preceding objects.
It is a further object of the invention to provide improved DIP-like packaging consistent with one or more of the preceding objects.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce the number 8 integrated circuit handling steps involved in packaging and lead connection production consistent with one or more of the preceding objects.